Postgraduate Publishing studies at Edinburgh Napier University. INDUSTRY APPROVED Publishing courses (accredited by the Professional Publishers Association and Creative Skillset). MSc Publishing was the first Publishing programme in the UK to be approved by the Professional Publishers Association. It is one of only two UK courses to be accredited by Creative Skillset. MSc Magazine Publishing is the only course of its kind in Scotland.

My Placement at Floris Books

This semester I have been interning with Floris Books, winner of the 2016 Saltire Society Scottish Publisher of the Year. As I have a keen interest in children’s books, I was delighted to be selected to spend my Tuesdays with the marketing team at Floris HQ. The company publishes beautiful books for children, and holistic and alternative living titles for adults. They also publish under the Kelpies imprint, which encompasses Scottish children’s titles, from colourful Wee Kelpies board books to KelpiesEdge YA reads.

Though I have become quite adept at stuffing envelopes over the course of the semester (are you even a publishing intern if you aren’t a dab hand with the franking machine?), the marketing team made sure I had plenty of interesting and fun things to do. I’ve become far more comfortable with PhotoShop, caught a glimpse of how publishers work with distributors, wholesalers and retailers, and gained an understanding of marketing niche titles, such as the anthroposophical books published by Floris.

Speed Bonnie Boat ‘See Inside,’ produced in PhotoShop by yours truly

I have particularly enjoyed working with titles under the Kelpies imprint, and was given the opportunity to use Adobe creative suite programs to produce both online and print marketing collateral on several occasions. Designing branded materials was a new challenge for me; I thoroughly enjoyed working with the imagery created by the design and production team, playing around with an eclectic range of typefaces, and adapting materials for different platforms.

This internship has helped to solidify my understanding of the practicalities of marketing books, from tracking sales, to contacting media and running events. On World Book Day I helped out at a school launch for Lari Don’s latest book, which was exciting, as I have previously only attended book launches as a member of the audience. I have become familiar with Floris’ intricately designed database, uploaded images to the website and prepared posts for the blog, and been given opportunities to explore social media analytics and sales data.

The best thing about interning with Floris? Everyone has been so invested in making sure I benefited from my time there, answering endless questions and taking a genuine interest in my learning.